I don't think this move is going to help improve Harper's low support in Quebec and with others, including his own party, for alot of reasons already cited by many prior posts.

I hear some say this is going to help 'cut off the separatists at the pass' so to speak, but I don't think so. Rather, I think it will embolden them.

I really think this is a bad move for those who favour Canadian cohesion and the preservation of the nation. This is especially so considering Quebec voted down two prior secession votes, and instead of capitalising on it, Parliament seems to be playing with fire with separatist doctrine and giving the Quebec secessionist movement tacit legitimacy despite the claims that it is merely 'cutting it off at the pass' with this measure.

Doubtlessly, Quebec has a French based history apart from 'English Canada' as the separatists love to claim. But, I've felt that has always been somewhat misleading because there are large and/or noticeable French populations and influences in the Maritimes and the Prairies too. Bloc Quebecois (BQ) separatists love to hog the identity for themselves as if the French connection is unique to them and thus make it a raison d'etre for separation, but really it is part of Canada's makeup generally, and should be something that serves Canadian identity and cohesion instead.

Nationalism can indeed be turned into something ugly when taken to extremes, but often times I think some people want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on account of that, and when doing so, create the seeds for their own disintegration.

I feel that a nation that doesn't build and cement national glue between its citizens to see themselves as a whole, and build and uphold a national unity of identity and a common cause in that regard, will eventually become unglued. It lacks the resoluteness of desiring and securing perpetuity for its own existence.

I don't think Nunavut provides a good example for justifying this motion. The size and population of Quebec, the goals of the BQ, and the risks involved, are materially different.

The US, for example, also has 'Indian Nations' as well as states, but nobody questions that everyone within it is American under the flag and government of the United States, and makes common cause with it. But, many Americans once toyed with such ideologies like the BQ beforehand, where there were 'doctrines of secession' floating about in the various states. Before the South grabbed ahold of it, New England states played with the doctrine themselves.

The reasons were not altogether different than those raised by BQ separatists--extract power and concessions from the federal government and other states by threatening withdrawal. To promote this, the 'doctrine of secession' advocates constantly characterised their respective states as being different than those of other states (e.g., the South was agricultural and required slaves and that the North was an industrial giant who wanted to control, hobble, exploit and/or harness the South. Northern states earlier raised similar arguments to jockey for themselves).

The rhetoric of these people sunk into their people's minds over time. People eventually came to believe their own BS and/or get convinced of it by argumentum ad nauseam (say it repeatedly and eventually it sinks into, shapes and becomes part of the public mindset). The results were finally seen with the Civil War.